Tone Deaf on Race?
by Kevin
Need further proof that conservatives in the Ohio House are tone deaf to the public perception of their actions? Check out this story: 14th Amendment possibly snagged in Ohio House. It’s a beaut. State Senator Mark Mallory introduced a resolution to have Ohio ratify the 14th amenement to the constitution. Ohio ratified it in 1867, but in the next election, Democrats, who had campaigned against the amendment, won a majority in the legislature, and in 1868, the legislature rescinded its ratification. Ohio is the only state that has not ratified it.
Don’t you see the beauty in that? Here was something the Democrats had done wrong low these many years and the majority Republican party could correct this historical wrong. The Ohio Senate clearly got the idea, all 33 senators voted for it and added their names as co-sponsors. Not so in the House:
There, a handful of conservative Republicans say they’re all for equal rights but don’t like how judges have used the 14th Amendment in cases such as Roe v. Wade, guaranteeing a woman’s access to abortion, or in a federal court ruling last year that said reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in California schools was unconstitutional because it includes the words “under God.”
State Representative Tim Grendell is worried that someone might “mis-construe” a vote for this resolution as a vote for the “misapplication” of the amendment in recent years.
In a written message this week to House Republicans, Grendell said he will vote to re-ratify the 14th Amendment “because of its laudable purpose and often important application,” but he also proposed tacking on an addendum that says Ohio does not ratify the amendment’s “prior judicial misapplication.”
State Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, is proposing more strident language: “Resolved that the General Assembly rejects those judicial interpretations of the 14th Amendment that unreasonably restrict state governments from promoting the free exercise of religion, defending the sanctity of unborn life and ensuring the equitable distribution of education dollars to aid students enrolled in schools sponsored by religious institutions.”
There is at least one Republcan who gets it. State Rep. Keith Faber:
I think there could be a public appearance that if Ohio somehow doesn’t approve this or some members of the House don’t support this that, somehow, those members don’t support racial equality.
Ya think?
Here is one issue I don’t get, is not the ratification only an up or down vote? The amendment can’t be modified, so the changes are symbolic layered upon an already symbolic act.
Seitz had to be from Cincinnati, we couldn’t catch a break there.
What’s the big deal. Most states and the Federal government ignore the 14th Amendment. Isn’t this what the Michigan State Law School debate is all about?